Hird a tale of mystery and intrigue

Essendon's selection picture for the match against Hawthorn tomorrow night is more black than rosy red, according to Kevin Sheedy.

The Essendon coach said last night that Dustin Fletcher and Dean Rioli will miss, James Hird is unlikely to play but that Damian Cupido should return.

It was a report that was to become muddied by what was witnessed during the training session that followed, but one from which two conclusions can be drawn: that the Dons may again be without two of their best players for a critical match and Joe Misiti and Damien Peverill could be spared the VFL stint that their form warrants.

The call on Fletcher, who missed last Saturday's game with an ankle injury, and Rioli, who was unavailable because of a hamstring strain, appeared to be vindicated by their training, which amounted to running and some light ball work.

The Hird assessment, though, intrigued and suggested that Sheedy was constructing yet another of his subterfuges.");document.write("

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Before Hird completed the 90-minute training session in sound, if not brilliantly sharp, fashion, Sheedy said his captain was unlikely to play but would be given until tomorrow to prove that he is over the calf injury he sustained in the early minutes of last Saturday's match.

Afterwards, he was strangely no more positive about Hird, and yet effusive about Matthew Lloyd, who left the track early, supposedly for a rest and not because of a minor leg injury the champion full-forward appeared to receive before departing.

"(Hird has) been like that most of the week; the odds are he won't get up, I'd say," Sheedy said.

"I could train better than him. He's had to come off the last couple of weeks, so we've got to be very, very careful. As far as I'm concerned, we'll pick him, but he's still pretty doubtful."

The upshot of Sheedy's pessimism, if well-founded, is that Misiti and Peverill are likely to keep their positions in the side.

With Andrew Welsh, Joel Reynolds, Jordon Bannister, Shane Harvey and Jason Winderlich already in the side, the possibility of pushing more teenagers into the side did not exist, said Sheedy.

And nor, he said, did he have much senior talent to promote, with Fletcher, Rioli, Adam Ramanauskas, Aaron Henneman and, quite possibly, Hird to sit idle tomorrow night.

"We've brought some kids in over the last couple of weeks, filtering them in one by one, trying to get them in for a couple of weeks," Sheedy said. "(And) we haven't got any seniors to return. That's the way it goes."